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One of the more under-mentioned albums of last year was Slave Ambient by The War On Drugs. Over the last 6-12 months they’ve been releasing a string of excellent accompanying music videos - and ‘Brothers’ is the latest single to receive the visual treatment. It features a deranged ex-TV Cowboy who likes to play ‘kill the robber’ with some of the locals - creepy stuff.
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Watch the rest of their music videos here.
We Invented Paris is a European artist collective of musicians and friends who constantly re-arrange their subte indie-pop songs with ever-changing instrumentation. We’re currently giving away a free download of the live indietronic version of ‘Iceberg’.
Download ‘Iceberg’ (Live Indietronic Version) by We Invented Paris
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Snakadaktal are a band with flavour for the kids from Melbourne, AUS. They adore playing at tropical full moon dream parties and making atmospheric indie rock. We have a special free download off their well crafted debut.
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Damien Jurado is an American indie rock songwriter from Seattle, Washington. With The release date of his new record, Maraqopa fast approaching (2/21/12), we’re offering up the strummed desert-blues first single, ‘Nothing Is The News’ for free download.
Download ‘Nothing Is The News’ by Damien Jurado
Also watch the excellent video of Damien Jurado in the studio with friend and producer Richard Swift making the new album…
To all our Sydney followers, Odd Future will be hosting a pop-up store in town from tomorrow till the 28th. Head down and say hi to the guys.
(Source: oddfuture)
Check out the new official video for Active Child’s angelic single, ‘Hanging On’.
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On a side note to our friends in the southern hemisphere, he’s touring through Feb with St Jeromes Laneway Festival, be sure to see him.
(Source: mthrfnkr.com)
Amazing live action clip for Vision Vision by Chicago based Psych / Electronic outfit Loyal Divide … stay tuned for a special feature on these guys later this week…
Spend 1 minute with Mux (aka Brian Lindgren) and learn a little about the musician behind the music.
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Interview
With Shaun Lopez of Crosses
Crosses, a witch-house collaboration featuring Chino Moreno (Deftones), Shaun Lopez (Far) and Chuck Doom are back with a new EP due for relase later this month. We had a chat with Shaun Lopez to discuss the follow up to last years critically acclaimed debut.
How did the partnership with Chino come about?
I’ve known Chino for a long time, fifteen … twenty years or something. We grew up playing in separate bands (Deftones and Far), we did some tours together and became friends, but we always said that some day we’re gonna have to make music together because we always had similar taste. I started writing music with Chuck, we weren’t too sure what we were going to do about vocals at the time and then Chino heard some of it. He really liked it, so he was like ‘I’ll sing on some of it’ … that was kind of the plan at first and then he started hearing more and more tracks and it just went from there.
Most fans probably know a bit about yourself and Chino, but not a lot is known about Chuck Doom - can you tell us a bit about him?
Chuck’s kinda from a jazz background so not a lot is known about him, but he’s a really talented musician and writer. He kind of has a different way of thinking and hearing music, which has definitely opened me up a lot - and the way i write has opened him up a lot about new ideas. I didn’t really know him that well when we started but the chemistry just came really quick.
Both yourself and Chino’s roots are a lot heavier than the sound of Crosses, what do you think led to this new direction?
We never really said that we were gonna make this more electronic based music and we’re not gonna do anything heavy, there’s never been any rules about it. There’s never really been a record label involved, nobody even knew it was coming out to begin with, so there wasn’t any expectations which was nice. We were just making music that we were feeling at the time. It could change from EP to EP and i think it does somewhat.
The first EP was made available for free online, what was the strategy behind that?
Even though Chino has a fan base and I had a fan base, it was essentially a new band and you can never expect just because so-and-so is in this band that people are just gonna buy it based on that … we knew that wasn’t gonna happen. We were really proud of it and we just really wanted to get it out there, to as many people as possible and the easiest way to do that was to release it for free, we sort of loved the element of surprise with it all and letting people find it organically.
I feel like this - because I’m always trying to find new music, but i think it’s so much better when you just stumble across something really special on a blog or bouncing around on Spotify, and not on some banner ad, or video on MTV or whatever … i always like finding music like that and i think people that are real fans of music like to find music that way too.
What can people expect from a Crosses live performance?
I mean obviously there’s a lot of electronics going on - three people aren’t able to make all those sounds on their own so we have a few more people joining us onstage. There’s going to be two drummers - both playing real and electronic kits, a couple of people playing keys, guitars and Chino on vocals.
What track are you most proud of on the new EP?
It changes a lot, i don’t really have a favorite … I like them all in a way. The last song on the EP is actually the oldest song - called 1987, that was the song that Crosses was born from. That one was pretty cool because it was going to be a instrumental song and at the last minute, right before we were getting ready to master the record we put vocals on it - and it ended up sounding really cool - we’re pretty stoked with that one.
What are three emerging bands that you’re listening to at the moment?
There were a couple of records that came out last year that i fell in love with … the record i really dug - he’s actually doing a couple of shows with us, he’s called Dawn Golden and Rosy Cross, it’s just one guy - he made this really cool electronic record and his live show is really cool. I also really loved The Weeknd’s first record … and another band called Inc. recently put out an EP that was really good.
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Their ‘EP ††’ will be available January 24
Add Crosses to your playlist
Upcoming Live Shows
January 31st – Pomona, CA (The Glasshouse)
February 1st – San Diego, CA (The Casbah)
February 3rd – Sacramento, CA (Ace Of Spades)
February 4th – San Francisco, CA (Slim’s)
We currently have 3 exclusive free downloads sitting on our charts. Check them out below.
The first is from an artist to watch in 2012 - King Charles. His music paints wild pictures of revolution and romance with the energy of a true British pop star and the lyrical ingenuity of a classic poet.
Download Ivory Road by King Charles
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The next is from Dyanasty Electric - an electro-rock duo from Brooklyn, NY. With big plans for a fourth album in 2012, the band are giving away their new single ‘Electric Love’, which features drummer Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Download Electric Love by Dynasty Electric
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And finally we have Alex Day, the biggest UK solo artist on YouTube. He has an online audience of nearly half a million people and has sold over fifteen thousand copies of his full-length albums with no record label support or radio airplay. He’s giving away his 2011 winter single ‘Forever Your’s exclusively on Hunted.
Bantum is a DJ/Producer hailing from Dublin, Ireland whose sound has many labelling as slamming electro fun. Since teaming up with vocalists Margie Lewis and Owensie on his latest EP Lay Lay, he has opened up another layer of musical styling and shows us why he deserves attention. Check out his latest remix and the feature track from Lay Lay below.
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Caged Animals is the lo-fi/synth-pop project of Vincent Cacchione (the frontman of Soft Black). Late last year they released their debut album ‘Eat Their Own’, a work which is light, airy and great to have on repeat. Cacchione says that making music as Caged Animals feels like the most natural expression of himself, valuing emotional honesty over everything else. We couldn’t agree more. Stream ‘Eat Their Own’ via Soundcloud below and see for yourself.
Add Caged Animals to your playlist
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What we know about b.east is this, he’s based in Washington D.C., is 20 years old and his real name is Cornell Williams. He makes rugged beats sure to put you in the right mood. We like what we’re hearing from the young producer and are keen for loads more. Check out this single off his latest work Find.My.Way.
We just donated to the Festival of Children Foundation & Ali Forney Center for Cat Power’s new track ‘King Rides By’ - visit http://catpowermusic.com/ to do the same.
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The video above features boxing legend Manny Pacquiao and was shot by Giovanni Ribisi.
Have you tried our INSTANT PLAYLISTS yet? Spotify friends have been enjoying the feature for the last month and now you can too! Simply type in the name of any artist you love and we’ll bring back a playlist full of related music for you to listen through. Easy.
LCD Soundsystem are one of the greatest bands ever to perform on stage. This documentary not only highlights their final and most ambitious concert to date, but also forms an intimate portait around frontman James Murphy and his days leading up to it. Wow.
So great to hear The Shins are making music again. Take a listen to their new single ‘Simple Song’.
(Source: pitchfork.com)
The Weeknd’s third and most anticipated mixtape, ‘Echoes Of Silence’ just dropped. Grab it for free via the-weeknd.com and put it on repeat this holiday season.
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